Louder Than the Voices

 Happy Saturday! We made it once again! What is going on at your house today? We have a workday and I am dreading the work but excited about the possibilities of what we are going to get done. Our carport is a disaster, I have some touchup work to do on the paint in the family room, I bought a new table that needs put together and I want cup hooks put in my coffee cabinet. Praying we get it all done today! This week's Bible study fits in really well with trying to be healthy, we are talking about temptation. We are ready for James 1, verses 12-15. 12  Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. 13  When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone;  14  but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.  15...

 Happy Saturday morning! Safely through another week. I have had a really awesome week. I got to spend the week at the National Energy Assistance and Utility Coalition (NEUAC) conference with around 700 other people who are in the business of helping people with their utility bills. I was officially elected to the governing board this week, which is something I have wanted to do for a long time but never really figured a girl from a town of 2100 people in Southcentral Illinois could accomplish. We also got to see a project that I had been involved in since last October get off the ground, a LIHEAP white paper that helps tell the full story of what LIHEAP does to help people and change lives. I don't know how many community action agencies there are nationwide, there are 33 in Illinois, so I would say several 100. One agency from little old Southcentral Illinois was featured in that publication and it was ERBA. Again, the overwhelming sense of gratitude when I look at the things God...

 Happy Saturday! What a week it has been! Of course, I started out the week with a major check off my bucket list, ziplining! I had wanted to do this for so long and had been way over the weight limit, but Monday was awesome. I do know that there would have been no way I could have done this 2 years ago. I was very happy with the way my body reacted to everything, the ziplines, the suspension bridges, the climbing the rocky terrain, I kept up. During flight school, our guide was teaching everyone how to pull themselves in if they came up short, he said to me, don't worry about it, if you come up short, I will throw you a bag and pull you in. My first thought was, he is treating me differently because I am fat. but then I realized that wasn't it at all, he was treating me differently because I was at least 20 years older than all the others there! Funny thing was, I did ziplining really well and never came up short or overshot the platform. Everyone has asked if it was scary, no...

 Good morning beautiful people! Happy Saturday! I hope your day is filled with lots of good things and if you are going through a trial right now, I hope you can find one good thing to learn today. If nothing else, know that God is working something through you.  This Saturday finds my house getting ready to paint our family room. I am not a great painter, thank the Lord, that He sent me a man who is. Andrew may not love to paint but he makes things look so professionally done and I am always excited about what the end result is going to be. Bless his heart, I love how he goes along with my ideas, especially when he knows it means more work for him. This all started because before we had the roof replace, we had damage done to the ceiling and one wall in our family room. It was on my list for him to get that fixed and he did but then I realized, it had been 20 years since we had painted and I rag rolled the paint so I know if we just tried to paint the repair, we would always ...

 Good morning everyone! I hope everyone has had a great week! I have. We pulled off a great eclipse event in Jasper County on Monday and yesterday I got to spend the day with my mom, with no doctor visits involved! We were still on a mission, but it was an adventure. I treasure the days I get to spend with my mom. I also treasure days I get to spend with my son and some conversations I have had this week has brought me to this post. Until Robert was almost 7, I was a stay-at-home mom. That wasn't the original plan but it was God's plan and that was what was important. When we moved to Pennsylvania 6 weeks before he was born, I knew I wasn't gong to trust anyone enough to take care of him. Especially when the first news we heard when we got the tv hooked up was how a babysitter had put a baby in a dryer and killed him.  I am so glad I had the opportunity and I treasure that as I know there are a lot of families out there that it just can't happen for anymore. I was also ...

 Happy Saturday morning! Haven't written about the weight loss journey for a while so I thought I would throw this in today. First off, I made it to ONEDERLAND!! Actually a couple of weeks ago, and now I am at 147 lbs down, or 196 lbs. Andrew weighs 190, so of course my next two goals are hitting the 150 down mark and hitting 189 so I weigh less than him. I left off last time at being at 209, new baby, not being able to lose weight and being told I was just having a little post partum depression.  Well, we moved back to Illinois when Robert was 18 months old, we moved to Pontiac, about 1 1/2 hours south of Chicago. Life was going along fine, I was still fat but wasn't gaining, I wasn't eating, but I wasn't gaining so that was at least good. I kept deciding sometime surely I would lose my baby fat.  Then, one day, w were cleaning out the garage and I picked up a trash bag that had broken glass in it. The bag was heavy and I hoisted it up my leg to help leverage the weigh...

 Happy Saturday morning! And more importantly, Happy Easter! I truly hope that when you hear the word Easter, bunnies and eggs are not the first thing that pop in your head. Hopefully it is a cross, an empty cross. Sorry I was gone a couple of weeks,  I had told myself I wasn't going to be a slave to the blog and so I give myself permission to take a week off now and then. I did that two weeks ago and then last week, I was in Missouri for Andrew's cousin's funeral. Last week was suppose to be the weight loss week but it will have to wait. With Easter here, I have to talk Christ today. We have had revival this week and it has been glorious! I know people who aren't believers cannot understand why we would go sit for three nights in a row listening to preaching about our Savior but for believers, it is a spa treatment for the soul. We always hope and pray that someone might come that doesn't know the Lord and they could get to but most of the time, revival is just tha...